Compare the covers of two music magazines

In this essay I am going to compare two magazines; Total Guitar magazine and We Love Pop magazine. The magazines vary in the way they differ and the similarities they have.

 Total Guitar is a rock magazine that is aimed at teenagers onwards who are into rock music. The Total Guitar cover is quite ‘dark’ and looks more complicated showing and talking about lots of different articles, guitar tabs, interviews and reviews inside, whereas We Love Pop is aimed at young – teenage girls who are interested in Pop.  This cover is very bright and stands out boldly. Just by looking at it you can tell that the magazine is jam-packed with gossip, quotes and promotions.

On the cover of Total Guitar, the full shot picture of the cover star is over the top of the title of the magazine however a band name has been printed on top of him in a bright and bold colour of pink. This reflects that people will already know the title of the magazine as they buy it every month so they do not have to see the full title, this also links into the statistic which is printed on the magazine ‘Europe’s best-selling guitar magazine’ which proves that people do buy it monthly. Although on the cover of the We Love Pop magazine, Tulisa, the cover star of this week’s magazine is being slightly covered by the title of the magazine and other cover stories. However, the picture on the We Love Pop magazine, the cover star is printed much bigger and in brighter colour so we can see her more clearly and it doesn’t matter if she is being covered slightly.

From the cover of Total Guitar, I have learnt that although the cover is printed in quite dull colours, there are lots of presentational devices such as the cover stories, statistics and pictures which make it into a much more exciting magazine that easily entices you in to read it, also the magazine really links to its genre. From the cover of the We Love Pop magazine, I have learnt that bold and bright colours of the background and texts are really in your face but make you want to read it. The use of the different font sizes, colours and cases that they are in draw more attention as it looks like it is more packed with gossip which is more interesting.


These two magazines have made me think a lot about what I want to put in my own music magazine. I really like the Total Guitar magazine and has made me want to create my own rock magazine as I like rock music and rock bands. The We Love Pop magazine looks really full and busy on the front cover and filled with gossip about celebrities, this has made me realise that I don’t want my magazine to be totally compact with gossip but full with news about music and music bands. Looking at two completely different magazines has really helped me with my decision on what I want my magazine to be like and look like and has also helped me learn a lot about what devices to use and what ones make a magazine look good.

These are the two magazines that I have compared.

My magazine questionnaire

To help create a successful magazine, we have been asked to make a questionnaire so that we can ask people what sort of things they'd like to see in our magazines. This will help us to decide on exactly what we want in our magazines and also see other peoples views to our ideas. 

This is my questionnaire: 

I have made this questionnaire so that your answers will help me with ideas to create my music magazine in Media. 

1. Gender: Male  Female  (Please circle answer) 


2. Age: Under 16     16 - 20     21 - 25     26 - 30     30+  (Please circle answer) 


3. What sort of music genre are you into?: 
R&B     Pop     Rock     Metal     Classical     Other_____________  (Please circle answer - if answered 'other' please answer on the line) 

4. How much would you spend on a music magazine weekly?
Less than £1     £1 - £1.50     £1.51 - £2.00     £2.01 - £2.50     £2.51 - £3.00     £3.01+


5. What are your favourite artists/bands relating to your favourite music genre?:

__________________________________________________________________


6. What  would attract you to the front cover of a magazine? 

__________________________________________________________________


7. What colours do you think would be used on the front cover of a rock magazine?

__________________________________________________________________ 


8. What do you think is most important to see on the cover of a magazine? 

__________________________________________________________________ 


9. What music magazine do you buy/is your favourite? 

__________________________________________________________________


10. Would what you expect to see inside of a magazine? 

__________________________________________________________________


I put these questions into my questionnaire because I wanted to see what music genre people like the most as I want to do a rock magazine, but depending on how many people actually like rock then that will determine whether I will make a rock magazine or not. I asked a lot of questions like what sort of things would people like to see in a magazine so that would give me ideas on what to actually put on my magazine cover and also inside of my magazine. Also, I asked about what colours people think would suit a rock magazine because preferably I do want to create a rock magazine, so if I do decide to make one then that will give me specific ideas for it. I asked about what gender the people answering my questions are just because my magazine isn't necessarily for a specific gender however, people who like rock are stereotypically male. 

Music magazine collage

This is my music magazine collage:

I wanted my collage to really show what the genre of my magazine is going to be. I want my magazine to be a rock magazine. This collage is covered with pictures of different rock bands that I like and that i want to put in my magazine. I've put album cover pictures also onto this, to communicate that my magazine is going to have advertisements of new albums out. 

Magazine Publishers

Main Magazine publishers

• Bauer Media
• National Magazine company
• Future Publishing
• IPC Media

What magazines do they publish?

Bauer Media:

• Music magazines such as: Kerrang, MOJO, Q
• Mens magazine: ZOO, FHM
• Nature magazines: Garden Answers, Bird Watching,Country Walking
• Car magazines: Classic Car Weekly, Car Mechanics, Classic Cars
• Mother and Baby magazines: Mother and Baby, Prengancy and Birth
• Gossip magazines: Closer, Heat, More
• Fashion magazines: Grazia
• Sports: GOLF illustrated, Golf World, RiDE

 Ethos of Baeur Media:

•  The ethos of this is that they have quite a mixture of genres in the magazines they publish. They publish a magazine for each genre and ages and audiences vary for each magazine.

How successful are they?

• Bauer Media is Europes largest privately owned publishing group. Bauer Media create a very wide range of magazines offering over 300 magazines in 15 countries as well as online, TV and radio stations.

National Magazine Company:

• Tv magazines: All About Soaps, Inside Soap
• Fashion magazines: Elle, Elle decoration, Bazaar, Esquire, Handbag, Prima
• Gossip/Womens magazine: Cosmopolitan, Best, Reveal, Bazaar, Red
• House magazines: Good Housekeeping, House Beautiful
• Teen magazines: Sugar Scope
• Health magazines: Net Doctor

Ethos of National Magazine Company:

• The National Magazine Company publish magazines mostly for women as most of the magazines are about gossip and womens fashion. They also publish House magazines which stereotypically is aimed at women.

How successful are they?

• This company is the largest UK digital publisher and is one of the UK'S leading media companys with 24 magazine brands and 22 digital assets.

Future Publishing

• Technology magazines: Mac Format, PC Plus, Windows: The official magazine
• Games magazines: Nintendo Power, Xbox 360: The official magazine, GamesMaster
• Music magazines: Total Guitar, Metal Hammer, Classic RoCK, Future Music
• Sports: Cycling Plus, Mountain Biking UK, Triatholon Plus
• Auto: Classic Ford, Mini Magazine, Trucking, Truckstop News
• Craft magazines: The knitter, Your Family tree, Mollie Makes

Ethos of Future Publishing:

• Future Publishing mostly publish mens magazines such as sports and car magazines. However they do publish craft magazines such as 'The knitter' which people would think are stereotypically aimed at women. 

How successful are they?

• Future Publishing attracts more than 45 million monthly unique visitors to our digital properties websites; and we deliver over 100 digital editions and bespoke apps on tablet devices. They sell 2.2 million magazines every month, and export or syndicate to 89 countries, making us the UK’s number one exporter and licensor of magazine content. Our most successful products include TechRadar (the UK’s number one consumer technology website), T3,Total Film, BikeRadar, MusicRadar, ClassicRock, GamesRadar, Digital Camera, Mollie Makes and Official Xbox Magazine. 

IPC Media

• Country pursuits and equestrian: Country Life, Horse & Hound, Eventing
• Fashion and beauty: Look, Marie Claire, Now 
• Home interest: 25 Beautiful homes, Homes & Gardens, Ideal Home 
• Lifestyle: Essentials, Woman&Home Feel Good Food, Wallpaper* 
• Sport and Leisure: Cycling Active, Amateur Photographer, Golf Monthly
• Teen: Teen Now 
• Tv Entertainment: Soap Life, Tv Times, What's On Tv 
• Women's Weeklies: Women's Weekly, Woman, Pick Me Up 
• Young Men and Music: NME, Nuts, Uncut 

Ethos of IPC Media: 

• With more than 60 iconic media brands, IPC creates content for multiple platforms, across print, online, mobile, tablets and events.

How successful are they?

• IPC Media is the UK's leading consumer magazine and digital publisher. They engage with 26 million UK adults - almost two thirds of UK women and over 40% of UK men. Our award winning portfolio of websites reaches over 25 million global users every month. 

Final school magazine and contents page design

This is my final magazine cover page. For my background, I still used the picture of the school gates but I had to change the contrast to make it more 'dull' so that the text could be read. However, I found out that by changing the contrast, it looked boring and dark so I decided to give the background some slight colour, enough to see and make the magazine cover look more interesting but clear enough to be able to read the text on top of it. The text I have kept the same as the others, giving it varied fonts, colours and sizes just to make it look more appealing. However, I didn't use very bright colours for the title, subtitle and text about the inside of the magazine as I think it wouldn't really match with the colour on the background, so I left it with the colours black and white. This also makes the text more clear and easier to read. However, the date that I have added is in red so that it would stand out for the students to read and know what issue this is and will know what magazine is more up-to-date and helpful for them to understand the information in them. I added three edited pictures which are 'smudged' into the page, I did this because I think it looks affective and smooth and like I said before, not like I have just copied and pasted pictures onto the page. I put these pictures on the bottom of the page in a line, like my last contents page draft, because I thought it looked neater than it did on my last cover draft where they were all spaced out. I think that this makes the pictures clearer to see because they are in colour and also, I 'sharpened' the pictures to make them stand out. 

This is my final contents page for my school magazine. For the background, I used the picture of the school gates again but changed the colour. I did this so that it wouldn't look exactly the same as the cover and gives the idea that if I had created a whole magazine, all the pages would be different colours which is much more appealing and exciting. Like I have done with all of my drafts, I have varied the font, colour and size of my text just so it wouldn't look plain and boring and would hopefully grab someones attention. I put the title and subtitle in black  because I thought that this stood out more than the colours I tried like, red, purple and a darker shade of green so eventually I chose black also because it was much clearer to read over the background. I put the contents and 'Pg' in blue and white because I wanted to make them look striking and stand out. Also, the actual contents inside the magazine is written in black. I did this so the text would be as clear as possible to read because obviously, is the most important part of the contents page. For the pictures, I have kept the idea of lining them up so that they look neat and clear to see but also instead of putting them across the bottom, I have put them horizontally along the page. I did this because I have put another picture of a student doing her work which fills the side and some of the bottom of the page so I thought it would look too cramped if I put all of the pictures across the bottom. I have also varied the size of the picture of the student working and the other pictures along the side. I thought that this would look really affective as the pictures aren't just in one bunch in a certain place on the page, they are all over, but neatly done. The picture of the student has also been cropped out of the original background. I did this so it wouldn't just look like i'd placed the picture on top of the background and not edited it.

Second draft of my school magazine and contents page

This is my second draft of my school magazine. I think this one is much better than my first as it is much more brighter and more 'in your face'. In this draft, I used a picture that I took of the school gates as my background, so it shows the school and the school logo together. I also used  three of the pictures that I edited on Photoshop and 'smudged' them into the background so it would look like one picture. I also think by smudging the pictures, it looks more smooth and more like a proper magazine and not just the look of copying and pasting pictures on top. In this draft, I also varied the text size, colour and font like the other one as I thought it made the magazine more appealing and affective. I have also added the date so it would look more like a proper magazine. Although I feel that this magazine draft is a lot better than my last, I think that this one is a bit too busy as the colour of my background is too bright and because of that, you can't read the text very well and also you can't see the pictures that I added very clearly. In my next one, I am going to try to edit the colour of the background so it will not be as bright but keep the text varied and bright, and also keep the pictures that I edited and added to it. 

This is my second draft of my school magazine contents page. Overall, I think that this contents page is a lot better than the other one as in my opinion, it doesn't look as messy but looks more compact with lots of text and pictures. I have carried on using the school gates as the background so my magazine looks more consistent. In my next magazine contents page I would like to keep this picture for both the cover and contents background but change the colour of the background on both so they're slightly different. Again, I used varied text sizes, colours and fonts because I think that it is affective. On this draft, I put the photo's that I edited on Photoshop in lines on the top and bottom of the page to make it look neater and clearer to look at. In my next contents page draft of this, I am going to try to make the text clearer to read, by changing the background colour like I said but also by making the text brighter so it is more 'in your face'. 

First draft of my school magazine and contents page

This is my first draft of my school magazine cover. I created a plain grey background with just the school logo on the cover because I wanted to show off the school logo so the magazine would be distinctive. I have varied the size, fonts and colours of the text to make it look more interesting. In my opinion, I do not think that this worked as I find this magazine cover too plain. There are not any pictures on it, however I like the idea of the varied text sizes and fonts. In my next draft of the front cover, I am going to try and create it in colour and put lots of pictures and more text on it so it will be more appealing, interesting and striking.

This is my first contents page draft. I created this with a lighter grey background so that you could read the writing easier. The background on my contents page also has the school logo on it also, I did this so it would look consistent and neat. I also varied the text font so it would look interesting. I added pictures of things in/happening around school which relate to the contents page stories. I also didn't add all of the stories that I was going to like 'Speak out' and 'Mr. Wilcocks say', so in my next one I am going to be adding them. Although I think that the contents page looks more interesting and busier than the magazine cover, I still think that it looks too bland and colourless. I think it looks a bit too messy as the pictures aren't exactly in line and the same size. On my next draft, I want to make it much more colourful so someone will be  automatically attracted to it and then draw them in.